


make it better piece by piece

by PrettyBrownEyes



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Angst, Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, Drugs, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, I'm so FUCKING excited to write this lmao, M/M, Sadness, Smut, asshole ex-boyfriends, but he's not abusive, he's got a grandma too cause that's how Political Animals went, john's dad is still a bitch, lafayette and alex are platonically married lol, mom is amazing, more to come when I actually write important things, the author is rambling in the tags
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-28
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-20 09:17:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9484646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrettyBrownEyes/pseuds/PrettyBrownEyes
Summary: in which John is just TJ Hammond from Political Animals.John Laurens, son of former President Henry Laurens and current Secretary of State Eleanor Ball, has grown up in the spotlight. As a teenager, he turned to drugs to help him cope. After two suicide attempts, therapy, rehab, and a shit storm of other things, he’s reached wits end. He’s done.Alex is a successful author living what is essentially is dream life. The only thing missing is a loving, doting boyfriend. He’s living in D.C., adjusting to life alone in a new city. Suddenly, he meets John, a broken boy whom Alex comes to adore.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [one_golden_sun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/one_golden_sun/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: attempted suicide, drugs, alcohol 
> 
> Jack Laurens is messed up and Alex tries to fix him, just a little.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome, all, to the first multi-chapter fic I have ever written. Also, the first Lams fic I've ever written! Inspired by the ever-amazing one_golden_sun, I present you "make it better piece by piece". 
> 
> Comments and kudos feed the author, y'all. I promise this first chapter isn't my best work -- I just had to get some exposition out of the way so I could launch into the story. 
> 
> Love y'all. 
> 
> -Cass

Alex is out for another late-night walk. Work has been crazy lately, and he needs to unwind. His job as a successful author and illustrator has put him in and really nice little house in D.C., which is nice and all, really, though he misses New York with all he’s got. He has nightmares, about the hurricane still, nearly -- God, has it really been nine years? But he doesn’t feel the need to sleep so much, and he’s finally learned that he needs to take breaks or he actually goes insane, so he takes walks instead. Sure, after two months in a new city he knows how to get around kind of and which Metro stop gets him home the fastest, but at night he likes to walk. Likes to familiarize himself with this new place. He misses Manhattan. 

 

It’s just about midnight, and though it should be dark the lights of the city and the cars driving by illuminate the world for him. He’s just made it to the Key Bridge, crossing out of Arlington and back into Georgetown, when a figure catches his eye. It’s a Tuesday, and not many people are out this late on a weeknight. He keeps walking, hoping that whoever it is doesn’t harass him, though that only happened once so he supposes the chances of it happening again are fairly slim. 

 

He gets closer to the person on the bridge, and can smell the booze on them, the cigarette in their  hand, and the marijuana smoke that clings to their clothes. Even closer and he can see that it’s a man, probably about his age, wearing a t-shirt and jeans, no coat, though the night is cool for D.C. in the summer. In the dim glow of the street light, tear tracks glisten on the man’s face and illuminate the redness of his eyes -- from the weed or the crying, Alex is unsure. He notes strong eyebrows, long hair pulled back into a bun on the bottom of his head, and a face covered in freckles.

 

He supposes he should say something. The man really is beautiful, he is, and Alex’s heart gets a tiny hairline fracture from seeing something so beautiful so sad. He approaches the man, stepping quietly and purposefully to stand next to him on his right side. 

“Um... Is there anything I can do for you?” asks Alex, mentally cursing himself for being so fucking awkward. 

 

The man looks at him, eyes glazed, nose running, lip quivering. “I swear to you, if you call the police, if you tell anyone about this, I will find a way to kill you,” says the man. Alex is momentarily confused until the man steps forward, crushing his cigarette under the toe of his Converse, and leans over the guardrail. 

 

Alex grabs the man around the waist, pulling him back. 

 

The man struggles. Cusses him out. “Motherfucker, let me go! Goddamnit!” he screams. Alex is glad there’s nobody else around. 

After a few minutes of struggling the man goes limp against Alex, drawing in a deep shuddering breath before releasing a heartbreaking sob, clutching at the front of Alex’s hoodie and burying his face in Alex’s neck. Alex freezes for a moment, then begins rubbing the man’s back and speaking nonsensically to him, frantically trying to calm him down. 

 

“I’ve got you, it’s okay, it’s all gonna be alright.” He doesn’t know when he became so comfortable with comforting complete strangers on bridges at one in the morning. The man’s breathing regulates so Alex begins to pull away, but the man rewards him with a fresh round of tears and frantic scrabbling to keep his hold. Alex takes a deep breath. He doesn’t sleep much, that much is true, but he does sleep at least a little every night and he’s getting tired. He pulls away from the man, taking a grip on his hands and pushing his away just a bit so he can look him in the eye. “Can I bring you back to my apartment?” he asks, meeting the other man’s eyes. “Can I at least get your name?”

 

It’s a faint whisper but he finally speaks. “John.” 

 

Alex nods. “John. Okay, baby, let’s get you to bed.” He cringes. When did it become okay for him to call a complete stranger “baby”?

 

John shakes his head. “Jack.” 

 

Alex furrows his brow. “You need someone named ‘Jack’?” he guesses. 

John shakes his head again. “I’m Jack.” 

Alex mentally facepalms. 

“Well, Jack, I think you need a glass of water and bed. Let’s go.” 

Hand in hand, the pair walk through the empty streets of Georgetown back to Alex’s little brick house sandwiched on a block of many. They walk up the stairs, Alex unlocks the front door, and then they’re inside. Blessedly, Alex spent the morning picking up his living space, so the couch is free of obstructions allowing him to guide John--  _ Jack--  _ to sit down. “I’ll be right back, sweetheart” he says, trying his hardest to avoid another meltdown situation. “I’m gonna grab you a glass of water, and put you to bed, and then we’re gonna talk about this in the morning.” 

 

He does just that, fetching a glass of water from the kitchen and a blanket and pillow from his linens closet, all the while noting that as strange as he felt about using pet names for a stranger, they seemed to calm Jack down immensely. He helps Jack remove his shoes, helps him lay on his side in case he throws up, tucks him in underneath the blanket, shuts off the lights and makes to go brush his teeth. He steals a glance back at the beautiful man in his living room. “G’night, Jack,” he says, but the stranger is already sleeping. 

 

Bleary-eyed, with a pounding headache and burning stomach, Jack Laurens wakes up on the couch of stranger. He shoots up, ready to run at moment’s notice. He’s had too many drunk hookups to not know what might happen. 

Then he remembers. 

He remembers hooking up with someone at a club, he thinks, and then doing every drug he could get his hands on chased by copious amounts of liquor and cigarettes as he walked towards the Key Bridge, ready to take his own life. He remembers the kindness, he supposes, of the stranger who took him home. But the rest of the night is a blank space in his brain. 

 

“Jack?” whispers a voice. 

 

Jack whips around. “How do you know that?” he says hotly. “No one calls me Jack anymore, except my grandma and maybe my mom.”

The man standing in the doorway seems taken aback. “You told me to call you that,” he says simply. “Look, you were pretty wrecked last night, so I’m not surprised you don’t remember everything that happened. You were about to jump off a bridge, hopped up on I don’t even know what, and I pulled you back. I brought you here because I have no clue where you live and I gave you a glass of water and put you to sleep on my couch. I made breakfast.”

Jack graciously accepts a cup of coffee from the man. “I’m Alex, by the way,” he says. Alex takes a seat on the loveseat and they drink their coffee in silence. 

"So, Jack," says Alex. "Tell me about yourself."

 


End file.
